Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/10

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

school of pharmacy in Bloomsbury Square on the elementary composition of foods, which he afterwards amplified into a ‘Treatise on Food and Diet,’ published in 1843. In that year he gave three lectures on polarised light, and, on being chosen the first professor of materia medica of the society, delivered the first complete course in this subject given to pharmaceutical chemists in England. In 1845 he became fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. His practice as a physician increasing, he gradually gave up lecturing, resigning his chair at the London Hospital in 1851 when he became a full physician to the hospital, but continuing to give a winter course at the Pharmaceutical Society until 1852. He died from the results of an accident, on 20 Jan. 1853, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. He had extensive foreign correspondence; always insisted on seeing drugs, if possible, in the condition in which they were imported; examined them both with the microscope and the polariscope; and paid equal attention to their botanical, chemical, and physiological characters. His collection became the property of the Pharmaceutical Society. A medal by Wyon was struck in his memory by the Pharmaceutical Society, and a bust, by McDowall, was executed for the London Hospital. There is also an engraved portrait of him, by D. Pound, in the ‘Pharmaceutical Journal’ for 1852–3 (p. 409).

Besides thirty-five papers, mostly in the ‘Pharmaceutical Journal,’ 1843–52, many unsigned contributions, and a translation of Matteucci's ‘Lectures on the Physical Phenomena of Living Beings,’ which he superintended in 1847, Pereira's works include: 1. ‘A Translation of the Pharmacopœia of 1824,’ 1824, 16mo. 2. ‘A Selection of Prescriptions … for Students …’ 1824, 16mo, which, under the title ‘Selecta e Præscriptis,’ has gone through eighteen editions down to 1890, besides numerous editions in the United States. 3. ‘Manual for Medical Students,’ 1826, 18mo. 4. ‘General Table of Atomic Numbers,’ 1827. 5. ‘The Elements of the Materia Medica,’ 1839–40, 8vo; 2nd edit. under the title of ‘Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics,’ 2 vols. 1842, 8vo; 3rd edit. vol. i. 1849, and vol. ii., edited by A. S. Taylor and G. O. Rees, 1853; 4th edit. 1854–7, and 5th edit., edited by R. Bentley and T. Redwood, 1872; besides several editions in the United States. 6. ‘Tabular View of the History and Literature of the Materia Medica,’ 1840, 8vo. 7. ‘A Treatise on Food and Diet,’ 1843, 8vo. 8. ‘Lectures on Polarised Light,’ 1843, 8vo; 2nd edit. by B. Powell, 1854.

[Pharmaceutical Journal, 1852–3, p. 409; Gent. Mag. 1853, i. 320–2; Allibone's Dict. p. 1562; Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers, iv. 825–6; Proceedings of the Linnean Society, ii. 237.]

G. S. B.

PERFORATUS, ANDREAS (1490?–1549), traveller and physician. [See Boorde or Borde, Andrew.]

PERIGAL, ARTHUR (1784?–1847), historical painter, descended from an old Norman family driven to England by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, was born about 1784. He studied under Fuseli at the Royal Academy, and in 1811 gained the gold medal for historical painting, the subject being ‘Themistocles taking Refuge at the Court of Admetus.’ He had begun in 1810 to exhibit both at the Royal Academy and at the British Institution, sending to the former a portrait and ‘Queen Katherine delivering to Capucius her Farewell Letter to King Henry the Eighth,’ and to the latter ‘The Restoration of the Daughters of Œdipus’ and ‘Helena and Hermia’ from the ‘Midsummer Night's Dream.’ These works were followed at the Royal Academy by ‘Aridæus and Eurydice’ in 1811, his ‘Themistocles’ in 1812, ‘The Mother's last Embrace of her Infant Moses’ in 1813, and again in 1816, and by a few pictures of less importance, the last of which, ‘Going to Market,’ appeared in 1821. His contributions to the British Institution included ‘Roderick Dhu discovering himself to FitzJames’ in 1811, the ‘Death of Rizzio’ in 1813, ‘Joseph sold by his Brethren’ in 1814, ‘Scipio restoring the Captive Princess to her Lover’ in 1815, and, lastly, ‘The Bard’ in 1828. He for some time practised portrait-painting in London; but about 1820 he appears to have gone to Northampton, and afterwards removed to Manchester. Finally he settled in Edinburgh, where he obtained a very good connection as a teacher of drawing, and from 1833 onwards exhibited portraits and landscapes at the Royal Scottish Academy. Perigal died suddenly at 21 Hill Street, Edinburgh, on 19 Sept. 1847, aged 63.

His son, Arthur Perigal (1816–1884), landscape-painter, born in London in August 1816, was instructed in painting by his father. At first a drawing-master in Edinburgh, he sent in 1838 to the exhibition of the Royal Scottish Academy a study of John Knox's pulpit and some scenes in the Trossachs, and from that time became a regular contributor of landscapes, sending more than three hundred. He roamed in search of subjects over all parts of Scotland, and occasionally into the mountainous districts